The National Association of Athletic Development Directors (NAADD) released its 2021 Award Winners back in February. In lieu of being recognized in person at the NAADD Convention, Josh Jordan will be recognized as the NAADD Rising Star recipient during the NACDA & Affiliates Virtual Convention at the end of July. We are pleased to provide a Q&A with Josh below; we hope you will take a few minutes to read about a leader in our profession below!
 
Rising Star Award Recipient
Josh Jordan
Director of Development
Washington State University
 
Statement of Thanks:
Firstly, I want to say thank you to my wife, Danyelle. Without her support and patience, I would not be who I am today. I also want to thank my mom and dad who have always been my biggest fans. It was my dad who introduced me to the world of college athletics, and he has helped guide me and challenge me throughout my career thus far. I also want to thank Pat Chun, Mitch Straub, Adam Ganders, and the rest of my colleagues that I've had the pleasure of working with at WSU. Each of you have had a positive impact on my life and I've learned a tremendous amount about strategy, preparation, and being the best version of myself in this industry. Lastly, I want to thank Krista Rammelsberg, Michael Rorabaugh, Scott Nelson, Jackson Stava, Bobby Weigand, and the late Tom Box for always encouraging me and giving me opportunities to grow.
 
1. What about athletics fundraising interests you? To date, what are you most proud of in your athletics fundraising career? What are you most looking forward to in your athletics career?
Fundraising is a very unique job. I love the relational aspect that fundraising brings to my life. At the end of the day, the lifelong connections with our supporters, coaches, and student-athletes is what continues to make each day exciting.
 
What I am most proud of in my career is the journey that I've taken to get where I am today. As many of us have, I started out as an intern working for free to get my foot in the door and since then, I have taken little steps to put myself in a position to be successful each year.
 
I look forward to stepping into a leadership role at some point in my career where I can be a mentor and give back to the next generation of college athletics administrators.
 
2. Can you speak on your team's successes this year. How has your team adapted over the past year?
This year has been extremely difficult. I give a lot of credit to Mitch Straub for keeping our team locked in and enabling us to position ourselves for another potential record-breaking year. Our team successes are simply a reflection of the culture that Pat Chun and Mitch Straub have created at WSU. We believed we could exceed our goals even during a year of uncertainty and didn't allow ourselves to make any excuses to not continue to get better every day.

3. As a former student-athlete at a division II school, how has that influenced your career this far? Would you have the same approach on fundraising if you weren't a former student-athlete?
I do think that being a former student-athlete has had an impact on my career. As a former Division II student-athlete, I didn't have some of the bells and whistles that many Division I programs have today, but what I did have were great coaches and teammates that consistently made me tougher and a better person on and off the court.
 
A great example of how athletics has breached into my career is how I deal with a lack of success. It's no secret that as a development officer, being turned down on a proposal is going to happen. Similarly, in my athletic career, I had to find ways to deal with tough losses and poor performances on the court. Learning how to keep moving forward and not allowing the negatives to consume your mind is essential in this industry.
 
4. Within the first five months of the 2020-21 fiscal year, you closed a $4,000,000 planned gift and 16 major gift solicitations of $10,000+. What is it that made you so successful or motivated to start off that fiscal year?
In a lot of ways, my success this fiscal year was a result of the previous fiscal year. Our leadership at WSU talks a lot about controlling the controllable. I knew that I could control my efforts of getting out on the road to build meaningful relationships and from there, I was fortunate that we have a lot of wonderful donors that want to make an impact on WSU Athletics.
 
5. What is one piece of advice you would give on how others can leave their mark and continue to succeed at their institution in development?
My suggestion is making sure you understand your "why". I realize that talking about your "why" has become somewhat of a cliché in athletics, but if you don't understand why, you are working weekends throughout the fall and winter, answering phone calls from donors after hours or trying to hit big fundraising numbers during the fiscal year than you're going to burnout. Everyone's "why" is different. My "why" started on the basketball court as a ball boy in 7^th grade at a small Division II institution in Seattle and since then, athletics has changed my life.
 
6. Why did you want to become a fundraiser? What do you enjoy about fundraising?
To be honest, I did not know I wanted to become a fundraiser until a few of my mentors recognized my personality to be a good fit for the job. For me, once I recognized the relational side of fundraising and saw the direct impact that fundraising can make on student-athletes, I knew getting into fundraising was a no-brainer.
 
Similar to what I mentioned above, I love the relational aspect of my job. I get to meet a lot of wonderful people who come from many different backgrounds. There aren't a lot of jobs that allow you the opportunity to visit with clients in rural Washington one day and downtown Portland, Oregon the next. It's amazing to work with people who have huge hearts and are passionate about making a difference at WSU.
 
7. Can you tell the NAADD membership about the largest individual ask you yourself have made? Tell the story, were you successful in closing the gift? Why or why not?
As mentioned above, I pursued a $4 million estate gift from one of my supporters. The most unique piece about this gift is that the donors are not WSU alumni. Over many years of being involved with the athletic department through season tickets and the CAF, they started looking at how they wanted to make a lasting impact on the institution. Athletics has always been their passion but working in the construction industry, they wanted to find a way to combine their passions. I was able to work with them and a couple of departments on campus to dive into what an impactful gift meant for them. They decided that setting up an endowment for student-athletes majoring in engineering or construction management was important for the future of the athletic department and the construction industry in the Pacific Northwest. They believed in the values we were teaching our student-athletes and understood the impact that this would have on future generations in the construction industry well after they are gone.
 
8. Given the current circumstances of this past year, can you talk about how you are engaging with donors? Do you find you and your team communicating more frequently? Taking a different approach? How has your strategy continued to evolve?
Like many of us, we have adapted on the go and are using more virtual platforms. With less face-to-face interactions with our supporters, we made it a point to make every interaction with our supporters a meaningful one. In order to do that, we spent a lot more time this year strategizing and sharpening our donor interactions with mock interviews, which were focused on various conversations including elevator pitches, pointed capacity questions, and solicitations.
 
9. What is your recommended resource that you use to be 1% better tomorrow than you were yesterday? (i.e., books, blogs, podcasts, webinars, etc.)
I have always been a big believer in being well rounded. I think understanding different kinds of businesses, brands, and the psychology of sport/leadership is not only interesting but also important for the growth of the sports industry going forward. A couple of books that I recommend are "Creativity INC." by Ed Catmull, "Range" by David Epstein, and "The Ride of a Lifetime" by Bob Iger.
 
10. Given the current circumstances of this past year, how have you changed your approach and strategy to provide the best experiences for donors or even to start those conversations with donors?
My approach hasn't changed as much as my strategy. I've always centered myself around developing genuine relationships, but ultimately, I want our donors to know that I play a small role in the impact that they can have on 450 student-athletes and the institution. I think it's important to note that if we expect/pursue our donors to be more philanthropic and less transactional, than we as development officers need to reflect those values in how we are building those relationships with our donors.